In May and June, Tim Green was paying about $200 a month to water his 5-acre avocado grove near Redlands.

But this past summer, Green’s water provider, a small, customer-owned utility called Western Heights Water Co., raised its fees in response to drought conditions and problems with the state’s water infrastructure.

By July and August, Green was paying between $400 and $500.

“And I’m probably under- watering,” he said. “I’m doing all the kinds of conservation you can do for a grove.”

Farmers around the state have been hit by rising water prices or water shortages that threatened crops and shrunk farmers’ bottom lines. That’s why state lawmakers were called into a special session in Sacramento this week to discuss ways to fix the state’s ailing water system.

“What we’ve seen is that water supplies have gone down and water prices have risen,” said Dave Kranz, a spokesman for the California Farm Bureau Federation. “Farmers, oftentimes, feel it first and most noticeably.”

Western Heights draws its water from wells that will eventually run dry, and general manager Joe Calpino said the company is trying to slow that process down.

In 2008, Western Heights began acquiring water from other sources. It bought about 261million gallons of water from the San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District, one of 29 agencies that gets water from the State Water Project, which brings water from Northern California to Central and Southern California.

But that water costs money. Western Heights has to purchase the water from the Municipal Water District and pay to clean it. Calpino expects the cost of that water to increase because of state conservation efforts. He is already planning to purchase less water next year, meaning local wells will be drawn down that much faster.

“We don’t know what the new cost is going to be,” he said. “We will know some time in the later part of November. The consensus is, because of the restriction on the water, the price will be higher.”

In other words, short supplies are likely to force water agencies to increase their rates. Some already have, although the San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District has not.

The Municipal Water District has a contract to get about 33.4billion gallons of water from the project every year.

Before 2007, water district Deputy General Manager Doug Headrick said, agencies could expect to get about 80 percent of their contract amount. In fact, they’ve gotten less – contractors are getting 40 percent this year.

Bob Muir, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which supplies water to parts of western San Bernardino County, said conserving water and finding other sources of water are expensive and have led his agency to raise rates.

“We had to replace that water,” Muir said.

Buying more chemicals to treat water from alternate sources and starting conservation programs increase the costs.

“All the cheap water is gone,” Headrick said. “Now we’re talking about basically trying to do the best we can with what remains.”

The State Water Project restrictions that started in 2007 are due partly to a statewide drought and partly to a federal court decision protecting a fish called the delta smelt.

Delta smelt live in the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta and, in the winter and spring, can be harmed when pumps send water from Northern California to Southern California, Headrick said.

From the end of December to June, the pumps are either turned off or turned down, meaning less water can flow south, he said.

Among the key provisions lawmakers are discussing is a canal that would take water around – rather than through – the delta. That would allow water to be pumped from Northern California reservoirs year-round without harming the smelt.

In the meantime, the restrictions and the drought mean less water for State Water Project contractors, which can lead to higher rates for the small water agencies the contractors serve, which can lead to higher water bills for farmers like Green.

Kathye Rietkerk, owner of Kallisto Greenhouses in Fontana, said she’s cut her water usage by more than 20 percent, but her water bills have still increased by more than 50 percent since 2001. Because she grows plants for a living, there’s only so much she can cut back.

“We changed the frequency of watering, we cut back on the higher-water crops and added more that use less water,” Rietkerk said. “But at some point, the cost of making additional changes goes up dramatically.”

In a good year, Tim Green’s 5-acre avocado grove near Redlands might produce $50,000 worth of fruit. He’s only had one good year since he started in 2001, he said

In the meantime, he said he expects to spend between $6,000 and $10,000 a year on water, possibly more if rates continue to rise. And he said he can’t cut back and still have productive trees.

“If you know your car is going to need 12 gallons of gas to get to Phoenix, Arizona, how do you cut back?” Green said. “Do I just try to give it the minimum to sustain the tree or do I say `screw it’ and find another place?”